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Association of
Ameritech/SBC Retirees Association of Ameritech/SBC Retirees Blue Bulletin Vol. 1, No. 2 (October 9, 2006)
Proudly representing retirees from the new AT&T Midwest Region, SBC Midwest Region, Ameritech, as well as the five Bell Companies in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin
What is the AASBCR? With the acquisition of AT&T and the name change, this can be confusing. While the Company is now AT&T, we still represent Midwest Phone Company retirees. Carole Lovell coined the above slogan. We think it says it all.
In order to concentrate on Healthcare negotiations with AT&T, the AASBCR Board of Directors has reorganized. Ralph Kolderup is the new Vice President, AT&T Relations. His Treasurer duties have been taken over by Chet Pryzbyslawski, whose title has been expanded to Vice President, Technology and CFO. Some of his responsibilities have been transferred to Carole Lovell, Vice President, Membership. For the complete press release, click here. For specifics on the realigned Board responsibilities, visit “Our Board” on the Association web site, www.aasbcr.org.
The Association has purchased AT&T stock and has formed a Shareholder Proposal committee. We have received many queries wondering why we are “wasting our time and money” pursuing Shareholder Proposals.
Is there an almost Third World gulf between the HAVES and the haves? While I can't complain about my quality of life, there is a lot I'd hoped to do that the economic realities of retirement have forced me to forgo. I sold my SBC stock in the mid twenties instead of my Ameritech stock in the mid sixties.
And my "free"
medical coverage is costing me $200+ a month. And I'm one of the 'lucky'
ones. My wife worked for United Airlines. I could have worked for Enron or
Adelphia. Then I read about Ed Whitacre's pension-for-life and Dave
Dorman's 'benefits' for selling AT&T to SBC. Click here for a full explanation. Don't miss the link in the attachment -- to an article by Ellen Schultz of the Wall Street Journal. It explains why AT&T has problems paying its pension obligations. (55% is for the 189,000 'workers' and 45% is for 1,000 Executive retirees.) Ms. Schultz explains the difference between David Dorman's pension (former CEO of AT&T) and Ralph Coletti's pension (an AT&T accountant), and their effects on the bottom line.
Mid-term Congressional elections are almost upon us. It sometimes seems the only time we can get the attention of our elected representatives is when they need our votes to keep their jobs for another 2 or 6 years. So this is our chance! For the questionnaire, please click here. We ask you to send this questionnaire to all candidates for Congress in your district. Please let us know what they respond – or that they did not respond. We ask that you let us know by October 27th, and we will try to publish all members’ experiences by the end of the month.
AASBCR, a non-profit organization, was formed four years ago to represent Ameritech retiree issues to SBC, renamed AT&T as part of the recent merger of SBC and AT&T. For more information on the organization please check the web site at www.aasbcr.org.
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